The world bound up in the snow and ice of winter is as fascinating as it is forbidding. Hoary mountains, blinding blizzards, snowy deserts, solid waters, fluid fires of the aurora borealis, and air that stings to breathe all give the distinct impression that men ought not keep company with such inhospitable presences. But how wonderful they are. There must be some mysterious reason why the holy places of Samuel T. Coleridge’s pleasure-dome in “Kubla Khan” were savage caves of ice. It could also be the reason why Norse mythology imagines that the first man was fashioned out of a glacier instead of the ground. Might it be that the hostility of the polar elements is the very thing that makes them irresistible? Somehow their unmerciful aspect reflects majesty, even the divine. Old Man Winter is as charming as he is cruel. Appreciating these qualities requires an experience beyond poetry, …